war no defence can be efficient or final which does not include a counter-offensive.

It is, or perhaps should be, a platitude that the best defence is that which inflicts so much damage on one's enemy that he is left without the power of renewing his attack. The defeat of the Armada was a negative victory. The Spanish effort failed in 1588; but, except in so far as her losses in men, ships, and equipment diminished the resources of Spain, the repulse of the Armada of 1588 did not preclude the possibility of the renewal of the attempt in another year by another fleet. A satisfactory peace could only be procured by successes of a more positive kind, by following up the repulse of the Armada so effectually and prosecuting the war so vigorously that Spain's power to trouble England should be destroyed. That such a policy would have been more effective than Elizabeth's plan of 'doing all things by halves,' as Raleigh described it, is obvious enough to those who can study the war as a whole and can trace its effects on the subsequent fortunes of the combatants. But it must not be supposed that it is only Mr Corbett and Mr Oppenheim who have seen clearly that the policy-to call it 'strategy' were an abuse of words-of Elizabeth was not only ineffective but wasteful, and the antithesis of true economy. Her admirals saw the truth, only to preach it in vain to her unheeding ears; and the blame of the failure to follow up the success of 1588-for failure it must be pronounced when the chances of the situation are examined -lies only at her door. The lesson of the years between 1589 and 1603 is not that it was out of the power of England to win a decisive success over Spain, not that the policy Drake advocated of striking direct at Spain and utilising the disaffection of Portugal was unsound and bound to fail, nor that the alternative policy urged by Hawkins, of striking at Spain through the 'flotas'the annual fleets which brought the treasures of the New World to replenish Philip's depleted exchequer-might not equally and perhaps more cheaply have achieved the end in view. It is simply the old lesson that, whatever line of action is adopted, it should not be discarded until it has had a fair trial; and that, as a rule, an indifferent plan well executed is far more likely to achieve success than a better plan carried out in a slovenly manner and

with insufficient forces. Elizabeth failed because she approached strategical questions from a false standpoint, because she thought it more important to keep down expenses than to obtain a return for her outlay, and therefore subordinated the questions which should have been first, of the strategical objects to be sought and the best means of attaining them, to the secondary question -undoubtedly important, but nevertheless secondaryof cutting down expenditure. Hence she adopted first one plan and then another, only to shrink from the logical consequences directly it appeared that their execution on an adequate scale would prove 'chargeable.'

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Thus, in 1589, Drake's 'Counter-Armada' was tried. If regard is had to what the Armada achieved, it was by no means unsuccessful; at any rate it was a striking demonstration of Spain's incapacity and helplessness. Still, financially-and this was the aspect in which Elizabeth manifested most interest-it was far from paying its way; the loss of life it involved was very heavy; and the hopes which had been founded on the expected co-operation of the Portuguese were not realised. The expedition, therefore, returned without achieving its principal object. But, failure though it was, even Mr Oppenheim, who criticises the commanders severely and endorses William Fenner's verdict that the voyage was 'a miserable action,' calls it a failure and not a defeat, a failure due not to Spanish skill or prowess, but to English faults and deficiencies'; and he points out that, 'whatever the mistakes of Norreys and Drake, they shrink into insignificance beside the initial blunders of Elizabeth.' Mr Corbett, less disposed to throw the blame on the commanders, is even more severe on the queen. It is clear that the expedition was originally planned on the considerable scale required, and that the force eventually sent was only a fraction of that contemplated by its promoters, although no corresponding reduction was made in the tasks assigned to it. Further, the commanders were not given a free hand: they were hampered by instructions which display all Elizabeth's habitual lack of strategical insight, and are obscure and confusing beyond even the average of her orders. Monson's conclusion that 'the

action was overthrown before their setting out from home,' is not to be easily set aside.

To some extent the cause of the failure may be said to have been beyond Elizabeth's power to control. The reason why England could not properly follow up her defensive successes, when she in her turn undertook the counter-offensive, was that her military organisation was quite unfitted for the task of completing the work which the navy had begun but which it could not hope to finish. Mr Corbett utters no paradox when he lays down the axiom that the true importance of maritime power is its influence on military operations.' The sphere of action of fleets is limited by insurmountable physical conditions; and unless an army is ready to take up the work of the fleet where those physical limitations intervene, no final, no vital, no decisive blow can be struck. In the case of an insular power, a navy can ward off attacks and prevent invasions, but it cannot unaided achieve more than negative results. The moral is one which some extreme advocates of the so-called 'Bluewater school' would do well to take into consideration. The army and the navy need each other to perform those portions of their joint task of national defence which they cannot separately undertake. Few conclusions are more forcibly impressed on one by a study of the Elizabethan war against Spain; and it is interesting to learn from Mr Corbett that Essex had to some extent grasped this most important truth. Mr Corbett takes a more favourable view of Essex than is taken by Mr Oppenheim, or, indeed, by most writers on the period; but, even if ambition had some share in Essex's anxiety to see the military organisation of the country put on an efficient footing-with himself, no doubt, at its headhe deserves the credit of having seen the weak spot in England's armour which had escaped the notice of most of his contemporaries. The most competent living historian of our army considers that Elizabeth missed a great opportunity. She might have reformed the military institutions of the country, brought them into line with the great advance then being made on the Continent, and called the army into existence without the political

* The Hon. J. W. Fortescue in his 'History of the British Army,' i, 130.

prejudice against it associated with its establishment by Charles II. However this may be, England remained without an efficient military organisation throughout Elizabeth's reign; and it was mainly from that cause that her counter-offensive against Spain failed.

In like manner, the real reason why the alternative policy-that of striking at Spain through the flotas-produced unsatisfactory results was that it was never given a fair trial. Mr Oppenheim makes a great deal of this policy, and he has devoted an interesting appendix to the Plate fleets, dealing with their routes, their composition, the regulations affecting their sailing, and similar matters. He would seem to be a strong adherent of what he calls 'the Flota policy,' and his severest censure is showered on Elizabeth for neglecting the chance of striking Spain through this the most vulnerable point in all Philip's unwieldy empire. But we must admit that we find Mr Oppenheim's arguments on this point somewhat hard to reconcile with one another. At one time* he points out how essential the flotas were to Spain, and how vital a blow would have been struck at Philip's power had the control of the flota track passed into English hands. The treasure which the flota carried he describes as

'the base on which rested Spanish political dominion and capacity for conquest. . . . Spain's pretensions to world power were supported entirely by it, for without the treasure imports Spain's own resources would not have sufficed to hold the empire together. . . . Therefore the flota track had to be as essentially Spanish territory as the environs of Madrid, and its closure by a hostile force would be... equivalent to a blockade of the mother-country and the colonies, and the disbandment of the armies, which could not be kept on foot without the gold and silver brought over.'

Accordingly, when he writes that 'a victorious English fleet, controlling the flota communications, struck at the heart of the whole empire,' it is no misrepresentation to claim him as an advocate of this policy. Yet when, a few pages farther on,† he discusses Drake's proposal to occupy Havana for the very purpose of obtaining control of the flota track, he condemns the occupation of

* Monson's Tracts, i, 27. Vol. 202.-No. 402,

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† Ib. i, 34, 35.

an important point on the track because it would have 'roused all the energies of the empire' and 'challenged Philip to a life-and-death struggle.' But an English fleet controlling the flota communications would surely have had the same effect, and would no less have brought to the threatened spot all the strength of which Philip could dispose.

In Mr Oppenheim's objections to the occupation of a place in the West Indies there is much force. With the fate of the garrison of Havre before one's eyes, it is easy to picture how a force endeavouring to hold Puerto Rico or Cartagena, or even one of the Azores, would have fared for reliefs, reinforcements, and supplies, with Elizabeth controlling the outgoings from the exchequer. This really condemns Elizabeth and her execution of any strategy rather than proves the plan, as a plan, apart from its execution, to have been defective and unpromising. We fail to see how an English fleet could securely control the flota communications unless it had previously defeated the supreme effort to which the attack on so vital a point would, on Mr Oppenheim's own showing, have aroused all Philip's energies. Surely Mr Oppenheim admits as much when he qualifies the fleet as 'victorious'? Indeed we cannot understand where the plan of cutting the flota communications by a military occupation-which presupposes naval support and co-operation-of Havana or of Angra in the Azores differs from that of doing so with a fleet using one of the less important because less convenient islands as a temporary base. The only argument that suggests itself is that, if money had had to be found to equip the military portion of the expedition, it would probably have been provided at the expense of the naval element, in which case the latter might have been so stinted as to be too weak to defeat the Spaniards and secure the control of the flota route. This is no doubt possible, with Elizabeth in control of the purse-strings; but, when one is arguing about what in theory should have been done, one may fairly set aside the conditions which in fact prevented the adoption of a sound strategy. Had Elizabeth been able to appreciate and adopt a consistent system of attacking Spain, she would probably have

* Monson's Tracts, i, 36.